Solomon worked his way through the sparse tree cover, moving perpendicular to the X marked on his map. His cleaned and reloaded gun was in the holster by his side. His newly created pipe bomb hung next to it on his belt. He had no intention of being caught in another ambush.

To be fair, he hadn't had any intention to get caught in the first ambush. He was going to make it harder for them to get him this time, though. Besides coming at the objective from a different angle, he also had his newly improved eyesight to help him out.

The passive boost from Hawk Eye let him make out individual leaves on tree branches that had been green blobs before. The ability from the Duelist grid, Keen Eye, had granted him a preternaturally good eye for details on anything within about five or ten strides of him. It was a great help once foes closed to melee range. Hawk Eye, though, meant as it was to aid marksmanship, gave him a much better chance of spotting goblins from a distance.

His other ability, Telescopic Vision, worked like the magical laser dot in that there was a flat 5 MP cost to invoke it and a steady drain of 1 MP every few seconds that it was kept active. He did have to look down the length of a gun in order to get the benefit of the spell. It provided an impressive level of magnification and a ghostly set of crosshairs. With his smoothbore pistol he'd be lucky if his shots ended up within view of the sight, let alone at the aim point, but it was a tantalizing hint of a future with more advanced weaponry.

It was also useful for scoping out anything that looked suspicious without putting his neck on the line. That extra utility was what had pushed him into filling out the Sniper grid instead of Assault Gunner.

He had put one of his free points into Dexterity. The other three had gone into Magical Capacity. With all of the handy abilities he was picking up, he didn't want to run out of MP in the middle of a fight.

Name: Solomon Gragg

Skills: Pain Tolerance (MAX), Improvised Weapons Mastery (MAX), Bladed Weapons Mastery (5), Marksmanship (1)

Grids: Tutorial (6/6)

Field Engineering (7/7), Personal Equipment (9/9), Weapons (11/11), Projectile Weapons (13/13), Firearms (15/15)

Bladed Weapons (7/7), Duelist (9/9), One-handed Weapons (11/11)

Marksmanship (7/7), Sharpshooter (9/9), Sniper (11/11)

Free grid points: 17

Strength: 19

Constitution: 20

Dexterity: 32

M. Capacity: 10

M. Intensity: 10

Free attribute points: 0

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HP: 200/200

MP: 87/100

Finishing the Sniper grid had opened another pair of tantalizing choices in Crowd Control and One Shot. Again he was being asked to choose between volume of fire and more damaging individual shots. Since neither grid offered an immediately useful passive ability, he was putting off the choice until he had a better idea of how his gunsmithing was going to develop with practice.

Moving slowly and carefully and making liberal use of his telescopic sight, Solomon was able to proceed without incident. Even when he turned and began moving toward the Outpost Totem, the woods remained quiet.

He slowed down even further when the X finally began to move inward from the edge of his minimap. He was drawing close. Ahead of him was a small ridge. Solomon got down on his hand and knees, crawling awkwardly until he was able to peek onto the clearing below.

In front of him was an area about the size of a football field that was completely clear of trees. Roughly in the center were four wooden walls, palisades that had been erected so recently that many of the trees used still had branches on them. Rudimentary as it was, the goblins had been working hard if they'd built that in less than a day.

Solomon lay prone, drew his pistol, and activated Telescopic Vision. At first, the little camp almost looked deserted. It took a second pass with his virtual telescope to spot a green head poking out from a corner of the fortifications. Once he knew what to look for, he was able to pick out the scouts keeping watch from the other corners as well.

It didn't look like he was going to be able to sneak up on him.

A gap had been left in the center of the wall facing Solomon. In time it probably would have been protected by a gate of some sort. For now, it offered a clear path into the goblin's camp.

Solomon climbed to his feet and walked into the clearing. He hadn't taken two steps before a piercing whistle rang out from the fortress. He ignored it and took a few more steps before he stopped, keeping a close eye on the fortress. Since surprise was out, he wanted to see what kind of preparations the goblins had made for him. If they rolled out some kind of heavy artillery, he was still close enough to the ridge to Dash back to safety.

The four goblins acting as lookouts had disappeared into the heart of the fortress. He could hear a clatter of activity, punctuated by the occasional screamed order. Solomon couldn't understand a word being said, but he could get the gist of it from the tone. They were certainly excited to see him.

A moment later an honest to goodness phalanx appeared in the gateway. Six goblins wide and two goblins deep, each goblin was wielding a spear in one hand and a shield in the other. They were packed close enough together to shield each other while presenting a hedge of spikes to anybody wanting to attack.

Solomon holstered his pistol. Killing one goblin wouldn't make much difference, and they'd be on him before he could reload.

He had to admire the decisive nature of whoever was calling the shots for the goblins. Perhaps it shouldn't be a surprise that a universe-spanning system would be competent in directing his puppets, but after hearing Mort's description Solomon hadn't expected to face planning on this level. The goblins had decided not to risk sending small squads out to be defeated in detail. They had decided that archers weren't particularly useful. They had decided to gather as many spears as possible in one place and try to stab Solomon to death before he could cut them to pieces.

The goblins began marching forward. Solomon might have been able to climb up a tree and slowly pick them off one by one, but immobilizing himself in plain view of such resourceful opponents didn't strike him as a very good idea. If he'd been limited to using his gun, he really would have been in trouble here.

Solomon pulled his homemade bomb off his belt and weighed it in his hand for a moment. A stray thought was enough to light the fuse.